Dharma Teachings

In this episode, spiritual director John Bruna teaches how we can engage with the teachings on Emptiness in a practical and transformative way. He describes various strategies for focusing on reality-based living that will lead to less suffering in our experience. John’s guidance is rooted in the buddhist teachings on Nirvana by way of the…

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna gives commentary on the stages of practice leading to liberation with a focus on mindfully engaging in wholesome actions in our daily lives. He talks about the essential practices of cultivating merit and purifying negativities which both clarify our minds and nurture the conditions for realizations to arise…

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna highlights a variety of ways that we create our own suffering through our misperceived reality. He offers valuable suggestions of behaviors and ways of engaging with reality that can act as antidotes to samsara and lead us on a journey of gradual Enlightenment.

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna offers a powerful talk on cultivating the antidotes to a form of laziness that manifests as discouragement and self-criticism. He suggests finding a balanced perspective where we continually develop a sense of self-worth but avoid a self-centered attitude that thinks about “me” as more important than others.

In this Session, spiritual director John Bruna offers commentary on invigorating a dry dharma practice by maintaining a balance of being responsible for our practice but not pushing too hard. John describes and offers a way forward through integrating our dharma practice into our daily activities and engaging in accurate evaluation by observing changes in…

In this session, John gives a dharma talk on the Buddhist notion of feelings which are the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings that occur in relation with physical stimulus or mental phenomena. Different than our modern understanding of emotions, this mode of feeling is an important link in the 12 links of dependent origination.

In this session, the Way of Compassion Dharma Center director John Bruna gives a Dharma talk about the 12 links of origination. These 12 links describe the how cycle of suffering, known as Samsara, comes into existence, and John describes how the path of Buddhist Dharma can break the link of ignorance setting us free…

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna begins a series of teachings that will give an in-depth view of the 12 links of dependent origination. He spends this session talking about the first link, defined as ignorance or misperception, that is specifically an inaccurate way of perceiving ourselves as independent and inherently existent.

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna gives a recap of the refuge and bodhicitta verse that was discussed over the past two weeks. He then takes time to answer a variety of questions from the sangha.

In this session, Spiritual Director John Bruna talks about the path of a bodhisattva as the six perfections of generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. He also translates these perfections into a variety of different practices that can meet us where we are right now regardless of our scope of motivation within the…